Drama, Danger, and French Passion

© Kito de Pavant / Groupe Bel

The wreck of Groupe Bel after a fishing boat slammed into it Monday morning.

The Vendée Globe got off to a rough start as two of the favorites were forced to abandon the race less than 48 hours after the start. And yet, the drama is just beginning.

Still, breakages of this magnitude happened earlier than expected. Marc Guillemot’s Safran suffered severe keel damage probably due to flaws in the boat’s structural design, and he had to turn back Saturday. Early Monday, a fishing boat slammed into Kito de Pavant’s Groupe Bel off of the coast of Portugal, shattering the boat’s port-side outrigger and the bowsprit, while displacing the deck by over six feet.

Day 3 highlights - Monday, November 12, 2012 by VendeeGlobeTV

Mishaps so early in the race are certainly sad affairs, especially for the sailors and their ground crews, who have spent literally years in preparation of the Everest of all races. But then again, these are very likely just the first of many breakages to come during the 25,000-mile course. Needless to say, they are also minor incidents compared to the lives that have been lost during the race in years past.

The Vendee Globe’s legacy of danger and drama was already on my mind as I walked along the pier Saturday as the Vendée Globe sailors set off to sea one by one, ready not to set foot on land again until they had sailed the globe. I tried to fathom what adventures they would face, subsisting on freeze-dried food and two-hour sleep cycles as they made their way through the “Roaring Forties” and other more perilous spots on the globe’s water.

Mike Golding on Gamesa said he "felt like an American president" as he left the crowds behind on the dock Saturday morning en route to the Vendée Globe start line. Photo: Bruce Gain

I also wondered how different the ambience might have been at the dock as the boats set off during the first Vendee Globe in 1989. I thought about this as I watched Louis Burton (Bureau Vallée) kiss his baby goodbye and a crowd of television crews and reporters trying to sneak-in a last interview with François Gabart (Macif) as he prepared to cast off.

Among the obvious differences between now and then are today’s boat technologies, designs, and multi-million dollar budgets, but what else is different? I asked Jean-Luc van den Heede--who finished third and second, respectively, in the 1989-'90 and 1992-'93 races--what the start used to be like when I ran into him on the dock at the start of the race.